Hitachi developed next-gen memory media that last over 100,000 years

Digital media is quite vulnerable to environmental changes. While Cave paintings of ancient people found in Lascaux, France is said to be 16,000 years old, existing data media, say recordable optical discs, only lasts for some decades, no more than a hundred year.

But Hitachi seems to have made some break-thru. They developed technology which enables memory media to last for 100,000 years.

Read on for detail.

Hitachi succeeded in developing Next-gen memory technology using fuzed silica: Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun

Nikkan Kogyo Shimbun reported that Hitachi has succeeded in developing a technology, which enables memory medias to last over 100,000 years using fuzed silica, a quite stable material often used in optical fiber and accurate laser etching.

Etching on 3cm squared silica slate with laser, the technology succeeded in writing and reading 4.8kb of data(equivalent to 600 ascii letters). This is only 0.06% the capacity of a floppy disk and latest Blu-ray can hold about 700 million times more data than this.

But it's also fun to imagine what will happen when records of our daily life is found 100,000 years later.

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